#novelist reader

[osamusghxst]

Hear me out, Dazai is drawn to novelist reader because reader reminds him of Oda... Not that he's looking for a replacement, but rather for that warmth and humanity that he misses so much and has been his guideline for so many years...

-🐁

ʙɪɢɢᴇꜱᴛ ꜰᴀɴ ᴘᴛ. 2

⌯⌲ oh no, if this continues i might have to do a full-length fic of novelist!reader T-T but for now, here’s another mini fic~ continuation of this request!

“You know…” he begins, already trailing off, the first thing he’s said since joining you for your casual walk along the city sidewalks. You were just needing to clear your head, overloaded with deadlines — corporate and personal — that it clogged your mind, preventing you from trying to dig yourself out of a potential plot hole. The idea has been wracking your brain for a full week now, but nothing has given you a breakthrough, especially with not really getting time away to be with yourself or your newfound center of inspiration. Your unfortunate muse, a stranger that flits in and out of your life, showing up when he thinks you need him most. He’s in casual attire today, a much bigger contrast than the assumed work clothes he has been in — he’s without his trademark trench coat.

The suspense is killing you, his eyes veered off elsewhere, hands in his jeans pockets, and his shirt lightly sways around when the wind blows between you two. Despite wearing something entirely different than you were used to, his arms and neck are still perfectly preserved in those white bandages he covers himself in. You want to ask, dancing on the tip of your tongue, but you never do. You don’t think you have that privilege; you still don’t even know his name. “I don’t think I do, unless you tell me.” You joke, and it’s enough to make him smile. It’s small, though, gaze now downcast, and his foot gently kicks at a rock in his way.

“You remind me a lot of someone, that’s all,” he murmurs, the distant memory of this person already visibly etched in his tone, that longing to see them again, it makes your head tilt. He’s a docile man, to say the least, but he’s never quite like this, this melancholia and pensive nature overcoming him without his meaning to. He almost looks to be in mourning. “He loved to write, just like you do. He… never got to finish his work, though. I was looking forward to reading it.” He sighs before raising his head, looking forward, avoiding you. Past tense. Your heart drops in your stomach as he speaks, learning things about him when you had thought he would stay locked away from you.

“Is that why you beg to read anything I write down, even if it’s notes?” You ask, not really thinking about it, and he lets out a half-hearted chuckle.

“Yeah, I suppose that could be it,” the air is soft, not humid or frigid, just a comfortable breeze that tousles his shaggy hair into his eyes from time to time, slender fingers coming up to rake through the strands. You noticed earlier today that he wouldn’t really look at you too often, unless he deemed it necessary. “Everything you write has soul.” He blurts, but he doesn’t regret telling you the truth. Just like him.

“That’s a very kind thing to say to me, but I don’t think I can agree,” you tell him, believing this to be the truth. You write for yourself, to relieve your stress, your anger, fears, and woes. The tear stains on the pages that bleed into the ink or the laughing by yourself at your laptop screen while you type away on something that may not actually be that funny — it’s all for you. Him reading it is a bonus, since he has crawled himself right into the crevices of your creative fortitude, building a home for himself to occupy and never leave.

“I don’t hand out compliments like this often, you should take it as gospel,” he teases, his smile suddenly growing, accidentally thinking how much you remind him of his best friend. “I miss him. I think you two would get along well, talking about your writings while I sit in the middle to stare at you two.” He laughs again, but it’s sad, his hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck. “Please, don’t ever stop sharing anything you create with me. I don’t look forward to much, but these days with you, like this, it’s given me reason to step outside more often.” You stare at him, unblinking, the well of tears on your lash line for a guy you don’t know threatening to drop in front of him, and the motivation you had been running in search of finally hits you right there.

“Would you like to join me at the coffee shop?” Your hand is reaching in your bag for your notebook, Post-Its and other scraps of paper stuffed inside from ideas that hit you while you were working that you didn’t want to lose. “I think I have more to write about that special guy, and maybe I can bounce ideas off of you.” His eyes, those amber sunsets hidden behind glass, finally look down at you, watching your hands and fingers fumble with the pages and your favorite pen, and he doesn’t hesitate.

“I’d love nothing more,” he whispers, staying close to your side, helping make sure nothing falls and slips away, following you directly down the memorized path of the coffee shop, his hands stuffing themselves in his pockets. “How is that special guy, anyhow? I thought you didn’t want me to read about him?” You falter, the toe of your shoe bumping along the pavement before falling back into step with him.

“He’s alright, I decided that he enjoys bike rides and matcha lattes,” you giggle to yourself at the thought, such mundane things to make about a character, but it adds to his growing personality.

Hm, I guess I could try one of those.

i actually teared up a little writing this, haha.

- ghxst

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tag list//: @dazaisfavoritemistake

[heldbybarnes]

okay love, I have a vision

mob!Bucky with novelist reader. She writes thriller and crim novel and sometime uses his life as inspiration (Bucky ofc is aware and allows because he knows she won't have him issues with her books since she's writing using a pen name)

i Hope you like the idea 😋😋

i actually LOVEEE this idea

----------

The first time one of your books hit the bestseller list, Bucky framed the New York Times announcement and hung it right in the hallway. He didn’t even try to hide how proud he was—never mind that the man you’d based the protagonist on was, well, him.

You’d warned him. You’d said, “You might recognize a few of the scenes.”

He’d only grinned, that dangerous, all-teeth smile that had both publishers and politicians crawling when he wanted them to. “Just spell my name right, sweetheart.”

Of course, you didn’t. You used a pen name. A pen name that the rest of the world now whispered about in bookstores and podcasts about “the queen of modern crime thrillers.” You never missed the irony.

Tonight, your newest manuscript glowed on your laptop screen. The cursor blinked at the end of the sentence:

He wiped the blood from his knuckles, the scent of smoke and regret still clinging to him like a confession.

You hummed, rereading it, sipping your wine as you heard the door unlock behind you.

“Still murdering people on paper, doll?”

You smiled before you even turned around. “Only the ones who deserve it.”

Bucky’s heavy footsteps crossed the floor. He smelled like his night—gunpowder, rain, and bourbon. He never came home before midnight unless something had gone right. Or very wrong.

“Who is it this time?” He stopped behind your chair, big hands sliding onto your shoulders, thumbs tracing lazy circles over your skin. “The senator? The rival boss?”

“The man who thinks he’s untouchable.”

He chuckled, low in your ear. “Oh, sweetheart. That’s me.”

You tilted your head back, meeting his smirk. “If the bloodstained shoe fits.”

His hand moved from your shoulder to your throat—not squeezing, just resting there, a warm, possessive weight. “You got no idea what it does to me,” he murmured, “reading about myself like that. The way you write me. Mean. Broken. Hungry.”

“You let me,” you teased.

“I do.” His thumb brushed your pulse. “’Cause you’re the only one who knows the truth.”

And it was the truth. You knew every piece of him—the public myth, the private man. You knew that beneath the immaculate suits and diamond cufflinks, he was still the boy who flinched at gunfire, who kept scars covered because he didn’t like what they said about him. You wrote him better than anyone ever could, because you wrote him from the inside out.

He leaned down, lips grazing your jaw. “You use the part of me I don’t show anyone.”

“Art imitates life.”

“Not usually so accurately.”

You laughed softly, closing the laptop. “Relax, Barnes. You know I never use real names. You’re just…my muse.”

He groaned into your neck. “You’re the only person alive who can call me that and live.”

“Lucky me.”

He spun your chair around with one hand, crouching down between your knees until your eyes were level. “You really think you can keep hiding behind that pen name forever?”

“It’s worked so far.”

He hummed, studying you the way he studied people he was about to break. “You don’t see the way they talk about you, do you? Every cop in the city’s trying to figure out who you are. They think your books are confessions.”

“They’re fiction.”

“They’re clues.”

The air thickened. You could feel his tension—the line between lover and criminal, pride and paranoia. It wasn’t the first time he’d danced on it, and it wouldn’t be the last.

You softened, cupping his face. “Bucky. I’d never put you in danger.”

His eyes softened back, blue and burning. “I know, baby. I trust you.”

It wasn’t a casual statement coming from him. It was a vow.

He kissed you then, slow and deep, tasting of whiskey and the night. His metal hand slid up your thigh, cool and heavy through the silk robe you wore. “What are you writing in that twisted little head, hm? Another scene where your bad man gets his hands bloody?”

“Maybe.” You arched into him, teasing. “Or maybe a love scene.”

He groaned, forehead dropping to your shoulder. “You’re gonna kill me.”

“Write what you know, remember?”

He laughed against your skin, muffled and rough. “God, you’re trouble.”

You tangled your fingers in his hair, pulling just enough to make him look at you. “And you love it.”

He kissed you again, hungrier this time, until the words on your laptop faded into static. His hand slid higher, under the robe, tracing your hip, your waist, his voice low and dangerous. “If I end up in your next chapter, doll, I better have a happy ending.”

You smiled, breathless. “Depends on how good you are.”

His grin turned wicked. “Oh, sweetheart. I’m phenomenal.”

Later, tangled in sheets and the aftermath, you lay with your head on his chest, his heartbeat steady under your ear. He was half-asleep, his fingers lazily drawing shapes on your back.

“You ever worry?” he murmured. “That someone’s gonna figure you out?”

“I write under a name no one can trace. And no one would believe that the city’s most wanted man reads bedtime stories to his girlfriend.”

“That’s ‘cause you make me sound like a monster.”

“You’re not.”

“Then what am I?”

You smiled against him. “A man who keeps me safe. Who buys me first editions of Stephen King when he could buy the publishing house. Who reads every draft I give him, even when he pretends not to care.”

He snorted. “You think I don’t read them ‘cause I don’t like seein’ myself on the page?”

“Do you?”

“Nah. I just like when you read ‘em to me.”

You laughed softly, tracing the tattoo on his collarbone. “You’re impossible.”

“I’m yours,” he said simply.

The simplicity of it always broke something open in you. For all his power and danger, he was gentle here. He was home.

The next morning, your publisher called. “You’re trending again. They’re saying your villain feels too real. Like you know something they don’t.”

You smirked, watching Bucky make coffee shirtless in the kitchen, the metal arm catching the early light. “Maybe I just have a good imagination.”

He turned, caught your look, and grinned. “What’re you smirkin’ at, novelist?”

“Just thinking of my next story.”

“Oh yeah?” He slid the mug toward you. “What’s this one about?”

You sipped, letting your eyes drag over him. “A man who’d burn down the world for the woman who makes him feel human.”

He paused, smile slow and dangerous. “Sounds familiar.”

You winked. “Write what you know.”

He kissed the corner of your mouth, whispering, “Just remember, sweetheart—don’t make me too soft. I still got a reputation.”

You laughed, fingers brushing his jaw. “Don’t worry. The world will always believe you’re the villain.”

“And you?”

You leaned in close. “I know better.”

He smiled then—quiet, devastating, real—and for once, even the devil himself didn’t look so damned.

[osamusghxst]

can i request a novelist reader with dazai? very self indulgent request, all i do is wander around the city, look at people, write a little while and think till i go insane lmfao

ʙɪɢɢᴇꜱᴛ ꜰᴀɴ

⌯⌲ super self-indulgent for me too. i got you - mini fic for the writers in the room.

The ballpoint scribbles along the page as you quickly jot something down, taken out of your own head from a thought that popped in, not wanting to dare lose it. The coffee shop you frequented wasn’t nearly as crowded today as it usually is, a few bodies coming in and out of the building from the otherwise suffocating streets. The coffee machines weren’t raging as often, the staff is dwindled down to only two behind the counters, and the sigh you emit is quiet, under your breath, so as not to distract anyone lingering nearby.

It isn’t much, a few sentences that barely form a paragraph, a one-liner or two for potential throw away dialogue, writing down something you heard someone else say when they thought you weren’t listening. You’ve been sitting there for a handful of hours already, mug empty long ago, and your notebook has been sitting in front of you wide open, waiting for more things to scrawl across the pages, but it seems your mind just wants to think instead.

“What’s inspired you today?” His voice, one you have grown to recognize in recent weeks, drifts through the air into your ears, perking up at the sound, and your gaze trails up to meet his. He wears a warm smile, head tilted, and a to-go cup in his hand.

“Hey, stranger,” you greet, the nickname serious, since you two have never exchanged actual names. “Not much inspiration, just can’t stop thinking.” He nods, helping himself to the seat across from you, placing his cup down and leisurely tossing one leg over the other. His trench coat you’ve seen him in a couple times is on, bandages wrapping his neck visible, and his honey irises shine bright under the artificial light hanging above the table.

“Thinking leads to ideas and ideas lead to inspiration,” he speaks in his usual riddles, hands resting in his lap, nothing about him fidgeting. Sitting there coolly as he does, gazing at you then dropping down to your notes before quickly averting back to hold eye contact.

“You say that like it’s easy,” you murmur with a small laugh of your own, pen setting down in the spine and shifting in your seat to be more comfortable. You two have talked off and on recently, as if you’re old friends, and yet you haven’t the slightest clue who he is or what he does. “And what brings you here today?”

“Same as always,” he nods toward you, a glint in his eye when his smile seems to be less forced and eases down to simplicity. “Was thinking about my favorite author and wanted to know what they came up with today.” The compliment is sweet, warming your heart that someone you don’t know, who has only read your messy notes and scribblings, loves your writing and always wants more.

“I fear you’ll make fun of me if I tell you what’s been hogging all of my document space lately,” you clutch your fingers together, pinching some at your knuckles to calm your nerves.

“Never,” he soothes, sincerity melting over the word, and you can’t stop yourself from staring at him a beat too long. This equivocal being, waltzing into your life unprompted one day because he was intrigued by how quickly your pen flew across the pages while you sat in the park that first day you met, and he has been fascinated with you since. You see him while out and about at minimum three times a week, and you have suddenly found yourself looking forward to those moments.

On its own, your hand crawls up to fumble with the pen, writing out something that jostled your creativity, and his gaze dropped down to watch you do so. Whenever he was around, ideas sparked, and it comes a little easier. “Just been writing about a guy, I suppose.” You confess, a shrug of your shoulders, finishing your thought to continue with another. Lately, you can’t stop once you start, bits and pieces of a story coming together about a man you haven’t bothered describing taking on some form of silhouette, wrapped in your handwritten letters, your digital Times New Roman, and the thoughts spiraling from your ever-moving brain.

“A guy?” He echoes, eyes greedily trying to snatch everything you’re writing down for himself, so terribly wanting to climb into your skull and roam freely around your mind, review every thought, memory, daydream, and nightmare you have that creates fictional landscapes and metaphoric castles. He wants to know what brings you peace to write. He wants to know what shakes you to your core that forces you to type until you drop. He wants to understand what moves you. What drives you insane. What you long for. “Is this guy anything special?” The question’s trivial, a mere curiosity, but you falter.

“Of course he’s special,” you find yourself telling him, but you don’t elaborate. It’s difficult to explain to others that anything you create, person, place, or thing, in your made up worlds are special, or they wouldn’t have existed.

“I have to confess, I’ve been dying to read what all you have written about this… special guy,” he muses, propping his cheek on his fist, eyes unsure if he wants to continue monitoring the way your fingers flex around the utensil or how your eyebrows come together as you’re see in thought. “Has he been plucked from the personality of someone or many someones that already exist?” He ventures, taking a small leap at an assumption he shouldn’t necessarily have. He is a detective after all, it’d be silly to stop making deductions even if he’s off the clock.

“Oh,” you breathe out an uneasy chuckle, suddenly unwilling to share anything, beginning slowly to close the book. “A combination of different things. Personalities, faces, phrases. My own unrealistic expectations.” You ramble, raising your head and have to hold back the slight surprise at him intently staring at you with those all-consuming eyes. The color always seems to change, never the same when you see him next, and in that moment, as he has you pinned under his mysterious observation, they shifted from the deep wildflower honey to a dark amber. Much akin to the jars at home holding your small bouquets of wildflowers you picked from the park.

“He sounds like quite the character if you want to keep him such a secret from me,” he whispers then, and maybe it’s the quiet of the atmosphere, the lack of people, or the outside’s evening sky starting to match the eyes before you, but something feels unspoken. “When will I get to read another one of your stories?” He suddenly asks, tone the same, and your fingers twitch along the cover of your notebook.

“Soon,” you assure, noticing the slight upward turn at the corner of his mouth. “I’m positive the next time I see you, something will be bound to be completed that you can indulge in.”

“Making promises now to see one another?” He gently teases you again, brushing some hair from his face before getting to his feet. “You spoil me, author. I’m looking forward to it, even though I know I’ll love whatever it is.” He pauses, fingers latched around the lid of his almost forgotten drink, then flashes you a grin, teeth showing, and you blink rapidly at it, radiant. “Regardless if your guy is special or otherwise.” He slips his other hand in his pocket before sauntering off, floating away as he always does when leaving you behind with some strange version of goodbye, and your breathing seems strangled with your thoughts simmering to nothing.

Damn, he made me completely lose the idea I had.

idk why but i went the strangers route. i worry this isn’t what you wanted, this is just what came to mind for me when i saw your request T-T he’s truly my muse though, like a raving lunatic.

- ghxst

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